Jazz Articles

Our daily articles are carefully curated by the All About Jazz staff. You can find more articles by searching our website, see what's trending on our popular articles page or read articles ahead of their published dates on our Coming Soon page. Read our daily album reviews.

Album Review

Jakob Norgren Jazz Orchestra: Pathfinding

Read "Pathfinding" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
October 16, 2015

Although he has been a fixture on the Swedish jazz scene for some years now, Jakob Norgren is more closely associated with soul, blues, funk and R&B than with contemporary big-band jazz. That perception may change with the release of Pathfinding, the debut recording by Norgren's impressive Jazz Orchestra, on which he proves to be a topnotch composer / arranger in a straight-ahead vein. And if the relatively youthful JNJO isn't the most proficient big band Sweden has to offer, ...

Album Review

Jacob Garchik: Ye Olde

by Troy Collins
October 16, 2015

Ye Olde, the self-titled debut of Jacob Garchik's latest ensemble, has been described by the eclectic trombonist--who serves as in-house arranger for the Kronos Quartet, co-leads the Mexican brass band Banda de los Muertos, and is responsible for the Atheist Gospel Trombone Choir--thusly: “Imagine a 2015 cover of the soundtrack to a 1970's remake of a 1930's movie about the Middle Ages." Truth be told, Garchik's summarization is perfect; though nostalgic, this diverse effort (based on a whimsical tale involving ...

Album Review

Darts & Arrows: Altamira

Read "Altamira" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
October 16, 2015

Chicago-based guitarist Bill MacKay formed this band in 2006 with the aspirations of creating a post-millennial folk group that crosses many genres. Featuring musicians who are integral to the region's new jazz and improvisation scene, the primary focus is on strong compositions that hold up nicely on repeated spins. Indeed, the album grows on you as the band melds jazz rock, prog rock, Americana and 60s tinted psych pop into its manifesto. MacKay's bristling textures and pursuance of ...

Album Review

Arturo O'Farrill & The Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra: Cuba: The Conversation Continues

Read "Cuba: The Conversation Continues" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
October 16, 2015

“I believe that there is no country in the world including any and all the countries under colonial domination, where economic colonization, humiliation and exploitation were worse than in Cuba...in part owing to my country's policies..." --President John F. Kennedy, October 1963 Revolution and musical genres share the characteristic of having an embryonic state. While the United States and Russia bore witness to the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall and the symbolic end of the Cold War, ...

Extended Analysis

Brad Mehldau: 10 Years Solo Live

by Nenad Georgievski
October 15, 2015

It is interesting how solo piano performance holds a special, privileged place in jazz music. What is even more interesting is how artists have gone to renew this format over and over again as time went on. Along the way they have expanded the language of improvised music by exploring novel paths of thematic developments. An entire lifetime can be spent on understanding how a single instrument like the piano can be re-used and re-planned in variously different contexts in ...

993

Building a Jazz Library

Ella Fitzgerald

by Mathew Bahl
October 15, 2015

This article was first published in June 2004. Considered by many to be the 20th century's greatest female singer of jazz and American popular song, Ella Fitzgerald (1917-1996) is one of the few singers whose work transcends generations and musical genres. Fortunately, over the course of a career that spanned six decades, “The First Lady of Song" amassed a nearly unrivaled discography. It is a testament to Fitzgerald's art and her place in popular culture that the vast ...

Album Review

Gerry Gibbs Thrasher Dream Trio: Live In Studio

Read "Live In Studio" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
October 15, 2015

Drummer Gerry Gibbs has been living a recurring dream with slight variations for the past few years. In December of 2012, he laid down tracks with two of his idols--the legendary Ron Carter and the estimable Kenny Barron--and dubbed their group the Thrasher Dream Trio. The eponymous debut from that band, featuring fifteen tracks recorded at those sessions, was, not surprisingly, a strong and classy affair filled with standards, some originals, and other jazz-friendly fare, such as Stevie Wonder's “Don't ...

Album Review

Mack Avenue Superband: Live From The Detroit Jazz Festival - 2014

Read "Live From The Detroit Jazz Festival - 2014" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
October 15, 2015

Bands fostered by labels and sourced from their stables are nothing new. The concept itself has always carried great possibility, but many a label has dropped the ball on the artistic responsibility side of the equation. At their worst, these types of get-togethers have come off as incongruous gatherings that are crudely slapped together. The concerts and/or albums that often fall into that category typically have one thing in common: they're there to make a quick buck and nothing else ...

Album Review

Funk Off: Things Change

Read "Things Change" reviewed by Alex Franquelli

by Alex Franquelli
October 15, 2015

The whole point, when it comes to marching bands, is that they have to well, stroll around while playing their instruments. I guess, you guess, that the whole point is lost on CD, where the mono-dimensional (time) facet of the spectrum monopolises the dynamics of the whole. Things Change makes obviously no exception, but does it matter? Not at all. The range of influences at play here is-- by itself--praiseworthy and laudable; the magnitude of their individual skillsets reveals a ...

Album Review

Jeff Jenkins Organization: The Arrival

Read "The Arrival" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
October 15, 2015

The jazz organ trio is such a durable format. It can play the greasiest greens or the most well-scrubbed church music and it all still sounds as if hand delivered by the Divine. Keyboardist Jeff Jenkins, equally adept on piano as Hammond B3 organ uses the format in both parts of his musical life, one as a teacher at the University of Colorado and as an actual gigging musicians. After recording for various labels, Jenkins was taken in by the ...